Windows 8 Tablets And Desktops Shown Off By Microsoft At BUILD Conference [PICTURES]

It’s always exciting when a company holds a keynote presentation and demoes new gadgets hands-on, and as Microsoft’s BUILD conference is now underway, the Redmond-based software and computing giant has already shown off a few of its upcoming products.

Microsoft executives have so far revealed quite a few notebooks, tablets and desktops running the latest Windows 8 OS, successor to Windows 7 which regained Microsoft some much-needed kudos after the largely dreadful Windows Vista. Whilst details are relatively sparse, Steve Sinofsky demoed Windows 8 running on ARM-powered devices, Qualcomm powered devices and even one tablet running NVIDIA’s forthcoming quad-core Tegra 3 chipset. One desktop on display - the HP Phoenix – is purported to be unveiled in the coming days, although we’ll have to wait until then to learn about the full system specs.

From what we’ve already learned, Windows 8 is definitely a lot more than just a vanity upgrade. The examples of the metro-style interface will please many a clueless noob general consumer, as well as those fixated on WindowsBlinds, but for those looking for more than an assortment of pretty tiles, the versatility of the software has also been on show. Windows 8 can run anything from an everyday one-gig-of-ram notebook to those juggernaut-like gaming systems running multiple graphics cards in SLI, which certainly makes for happy reading and throws down the gauntlet to the skeptics.

In addition, Microsoft will also be dishing out the “Samsung Windows Developer Preview PC” to 5,000 developers at the conference. It’s comes with 4GB of RAM, boasts 64GB of on board storage, a microSD card slot, HDMI-out, NFC support, Ethernet amongst other features. AT&T is also throwing in one year of free data service with 2GB of data per month to owners of the device. Not bad, eh? Wouldn’t mind being one of those developers right now!

With Microsoft’s BUILD Keynote presentation spanning two days, there will no doubt be another update or two in the offing. You can keep track of events as they unfold by heading over to the event’s website at 9 AM (Pacific Standard Time) tomorrow morning. We will continue to eyeball events, so stay tuned to RedmondPie for further developments as they unravel.

Here are more pictures from the BUILD keynote showing off the different tablets, desktop and notebook form factors: